The invention relates to a washing machine with a controllable fresh water intake for at least two detergent chambers which are located inside a housing of a detergent flushing device and which have an outlet for the mixture of detergent and water which opens onto a bottom surface of the housing which is inclined towards an outlet connection for a detergent supply line to the tub of the washing machine in which a laundry drum is mounted at least approximately horizontally. The invention also relates to a method for operating such a washing machine.
Such a washing machine is known from DE 27 24 426 A1. However, this washing machine contains an additional separate detergent chamber for additives which are guided into the same region of the tub when a separate fresh water supply is switched on at a given time via a separate path, not over the bottom surface of the housing.
A method for operating a program-controlled washing machine is also known from DE 101 38 067 A1. In the known method, at the beginning of a washing process in a first step without movement of the laundry, a specific first amount of liquid without detergent is passed onto the laundry via a bypass directed onto the inner side of a collar, in a second step with movement of the laundry a specific second amount of liquid is passed together with detergent via the main detergent chamber between the laundry drum and the tub and in a third step with movement of the laundry, liquid without detergent is then fed directly via the bypass onto the laundry until the total influx of liquid is sufficient to completely wet the laundry. In this case, the bypass consists of a water pipe which branches off from the inlet channel to the pre-wash chamber and which can only carry a significantly smaller quantity of water than the inlet channel per se. The water supplied via this bypass of the collar is therefore only sufficient to wet the collar before the drum begins to rotate so that the laundry cannot be damaged by rubbing against the collar during the movement of the drum according to the object forming the basis of the known method.
Since only about 3.5 liter of water per minute can be supplied via such an inlet path, in the known method the supply of water until the total quantity has been completely filled is too tedious. The known inlet path lies inside narrow pipes in the cover area of a detergent flushing device and thus usually remains occupied by residual water in an airtight manner even after switching off the fresh water supply so that a special line must be provided between the tub and the detergent device to ventilate the tub during the addition of water and detergent.
However, in addition to supplying the detergent required for the main washing process, it is the object of the invention to provide as much as possible of the required total amount of liquid to the laundry as early as possible using simpler means and more rapidly than in the prior art.